What to do after 'bad end' endings

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KiloTango
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What to do after 'bad end' endings

#1 Post by KiloTango »

Later on in the VN I'm working on, the player is able to make some decisions that lead straight to bad ends and I'm wondering what is the best thing to do after the ending is finished.

Would you say it is better to:

- Go straight back to main menu
- Go back to the start of the chapter the choice was in
- Go back to the start of the scene the choice was in
- Go back to the choice itself
- Menu with one or more of these options

In this particular case there isn't anything like a points system or flags early in the game, just the plot starts branching with a few sets of choices in the final chapter, and one of each of those choice-sets will send you further on the true end while the other will send you to a bad end.

Basically I'm wondering what might be the best way to not make the player have to skip through an hour of straight KN... while still keeping the impact of the endings. What's the usual protocol for this kind of thing?

(In the project after this I probably will put in something like a mini TaigaDojo but that one will have loads more ways to get killed in it XD. This one only has 4 endings in total)
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#2 Post by dreamy »

Personally, I think going straight back to the main menu after a bad ending will be the most smooth option and is applied for most VNs. However as you said it will be very annoying skipping through and it seems as you want to avoid doing that.
In that case, going back to the scene the choice was made will be the most best option so that the player doesn't have to do some extra reading and can go straight to the choice without being to abrupt. I also like the idea of providing a menu with the above choices, since it will be more suited towards the player's preference.
So the best thing for this situation to make sure the moving to the different parts of the VN will not be too abrupt and save reading will probably be placing a menu with where the player wants to go next in my opinion. Of course, going back to the scene of the choice will work well too :D
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#3 Post by Asceai »

If you have a lot of direct bad endings and they are mostly the only kinds of bad endings, yeah, I think it's pretty reasonable to throw the player back to the choice, since they'd have to do it manually anyway. I'm trying to think of commercial titles that do this, but only Rewrite is coming to mind for some reason.

The only reason I wouldn't do this is if you've mixed in other bad ends that are more complex, reliant on points etc. and would potentially require you to send the player back some way before the branching point. That kind of bad end is best handled by dumping the player back on the menu. However, if you have a mix it could be confusing if some bad ends do this and others don't. You could do this by having multiple types of ends- you could have bad ends that you just get from a choice, and a neutral end that you get e.g. if you don't get on a route. The bad ends take you back to the choice, the neutral end dumps you on the title screen. That would probably make plenty of sense to the player so it wouldn't hurt.

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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#4 Post by KiloTango »

That makes a lot of sense.

I think in this case because because the mechanics of what gets you the end are so simple and isolated, the best solution might be a menu choice of 'back to main menu' and 'back to [scene name]', which jumps you back to a point close to the choice but with enough narrative lead in to make the choice feel natural... the bad ends are involved enough to want to not feel totally cast away so it feels like that might be a good middle ground.

And yeah, I think endings that are based on points rather than single isolated YOU CHOSE BADLY that lead directly to the end would probably make sense to send you to the title screen...

Actually seeing as this is a kinda interesting discussion topic (to me, anyway) we might as well turn this into a general 'LET'S TALK ABOUT ENDINGS' topic:

What do people think about things like Taiga Dojo/Teach Me Ciel Sensei? Do games other than Type Moon things do that kind of "Hey you messed up, maybe don't be an idiot" skits? Are there any that do it without breaking the seriousness of the story? I'm not thinking of doing it for this project but I've always found them kind of fun and interesting, and a reason for wanting to get the bad ends etc...

Also I've seen people have really mixed reactions on here to having to play through multiple times on things to get endings. Are people really opposed to unlockable routes/endings or is that just some people. I think it's a really good use of 'stuff you can do in a VN but not other things' where you can build off stuff players have seen in other endings (that the character might not have but will colour the player's reactions/understanding of events) in another route but I'm not sure if that's seen as a frustrating thing in a game.
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#5 Post by Asceai »

KiloTango wrote:What do people think about things like Taiga Dojo/Teach Me Ciel Sensei? Do games other than Type Moon things do that kind of "Hey you messed up, maybe don't be an idiot" skits? Are there any that do it without breaking the seriousness of the story? I'm not thinking of doing it for this project but I've always found them kind of fun and interesting, and a reason for wanting to get the bad ends etc...
A few do it, but I'm having a tough time bringing many examples forth out of my memory. Eroges just mostly blur together after a point =P

I think MOON. did it seriously, but of course, it's inherently sort of fourth-wall-breaking because it's sort of speaking to the player here.
I'm playing Hello Lady! right now (pretty awesome game, by the way, not at all what you'd expect from the genre) and it does this in the non-serious way (with a LAUGH TRACK of all things)
I think Rewrite also does this, but can't remember that clearly.
KiloTango wrote:Also I've seen people have really mixed reactions on here to having to play through multiple times on things to get endings. Are people really opposed to unlockable routes/endings or is that just some people. I think it's a really good use of 'stuff you can do in a VN but not other things' where you can build off stuff players have seen in other endings (that the character might not have but will colour the player's reactions/understanding of events) in another route but I'm not sure if that's seen as a frustrating thing in a game.
Thread discussing that. In general the opinion seems pretty positive, but there is always going to be the 'I played this for such-and-such heroine, why can't I do her route first?!' kind of attitude present..

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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#6 Post by gekiganwing »

KiloTango wrote:Do games other than Type Moon things do that kind of "Hey you messed up, maybe don't be an idiot" skits? Are there any that do it without breaking the seriousness of the story?
Gamebooks often include multiple deaths, depending on the reader's choices. And all kinds of video games make it possible for the main character to die in multiple ways. This is especially common in adventure games. How *serious* are the death scenes? It depends.

Some major, late-in-story Persona 4 Golden spoilers:
About seven endings exist. In the December 2011 events, the game makes it difficult to get a good ending. A single incorrect choice can lead to a sympathetic character dying, and/or the team of heroes never learning who was responsible for the murders. It's also possible to become an accomplice to one of the villains.

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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#7 Post by Yomuchan »

How about a epilogue describing the consequences of the player's actions?

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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#8 Post by dreamy »

KiloTango wrote:What do people think about things like Taiga Dojo/Teach Me Ciel Sensei? Do games other than Type Moon things do that kind of "Hey you messed up, maybe don't be an idiot" skits? Are there any that do it without breaking the seriousness of the story? I'm not thinking of doing it for this project but I've always found them kind of fun and interesting, and a reason for wanting to get the bad ends etc...
Ah! I've seen those kind of things before and it's quite fun to see actually. As of now, I can't really think of any examples, but most of them either indirectly show the player what they did to make the outcome bad or the villain will be having some evil monologue on how his job was easier.
KiloTango wrote:Also I've seen people have really mixed reactions on here to having to play through multiple times on things to get endings. Are people really opposed to unlockable routes/endings or is that just some people. I think it's a really good use of 'stuff you can do in a VN but not other things' where you can build off stuff players have seen in other endings (that the character might not have but will colour the player's reactions/understanding of events) in another route but I'm not sure if that's seen as a frustrating thing in a game.
Like Asceai said I remember there is a thread on that topic. However, to answer that question, I'd say that most people are pretty alright with it as long as there's a good reason to do so. It just causes a bit of irritation at first since it will be so tedious to go back and play the locked path...
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#9 Post by KiloTango »

Yomuchan wrote:How about a epilogue describing the consequences of the player's actions?
I think, yeah, you have to have the consequences at least in some way, but that is kind of covered by the ending itself.

I'm talking more about the mechanics of your game overs and the options the user is given after getting them, rather than narrative ideas.

Back on generally ending mechanics + dojos etc

I guess as well, re:'seriousness' it's less the seriousness of just the badend itself and more with 4th wall breaking having an effect on tone of the narrative as whole. Like, the postgame 'wrap party' scenes in Higurashi gives it a different tone (then again Umineko then uses that to really great narrative effect that probably wouldn't have worked as well if you weren't primed for silly postgame fluff from Higurashi)

I know some of the most addictive non VN games I've played are ones where it's easy to lose but really really easy to start back up again (Super Hexagon etc)... I guess with the less important badends/deadends, you want to capture some of that NO GO BACK I'M DOING SOMETHING ELSE feeling, whereas with more important ones you want to lead the player to dwell on what they just did wrong...

Also I guess perhaps the harder it is to get a non-dead/bad end, the more you need something like a dojo, because in F/SN there are a million ways you can get Shirou killed... It feels like it's important the player can see the chain of cause and effect for how they messed up, even if not until after the fact, what do you think?
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#10 Post by Eiliya »

Personally, I prefer when the game over returns you to the start menu rather than sending you back to a choice or a previous place in the game. That's why we have the save function, isn't it? So that we can return to the savepoint incase we stumble upon a dead end?

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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#11 Post by Hazel-Bun »

I agree with above. As long as you don't have non-skipable mini-games or and cutscenes, I'm fine with being returned to the start menu ^^ Visual novels are meant to be read, and I always re-read good material regardless. But keep in mind every player is different. I'm a completionist so I'll replay to get bad ends if I didn't the first go around. That and everything in-between. Others will be annoyed even if you return them to a choice, and pissed if back to the main menu.
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#12 Post by qirien »

I like the way they did it in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - basically they have a flowchart with splits at each decision point, and you can, at any time, pull up this flowchart and jump to another branch of the story.
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Now, that's a little complicated if you just have a few endings. If your VN is not too long, it's not a big deal to skip past scenes you've already seen. But if it is long and complicated, you could try an interface like the one above.
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Re: What to do after 'bad end' endings

#13 Post by Katy133 »

I like the way the Nancy Drew games do it. After a bad ending, the player is given a choice to load a previous save, or the "Second Chance" button. The Second Chance option takes the player to the last choice just before the bad ending.
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